I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
-- Maya Angelou

Friday, August 22, 2008

What Love Is

I know, I know. I've used this photo before. But I've been doing some serious thinking about marriage and Life. I've been doing some serious thinking about how two young kids can come together on a blind date and, in the time span of 5 months and 4 days of dating, decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together. A young woman who was 20 at the time, a young man barely 21. A young man who'd had hair halfway down his back and was doing some serious drugs when they first met. A young woman who'd spent the past 7 years delving deeply into the occult and satanism. A couple who, when they broke the news to the young man's parents they were getting married, left the young man's father standing in the driveway as he watched them roar away on a motorcycle, shaking his head and saying, "I give them 6 months."

34 years and 2 months later -- SURPRISE!! We're still here, still together and it looks like we're going to make it to the end. We've had a rough few years here with my health going south for a while and we've had some serious talks about what the marriage vows really mean. "In sickness and in health, till Death do us part"...those are some heavy words. In the throes of young love and lust and infatuation I don't think most of us, when we say them, really know what we're committing to. If we're serious, that is. If the vows mean something to us. Most of us are pretty young when we say them. We're fresh and bright and Life is still the Great Unknown out there. We're invincible. We can face anything. Some of us have waited until marriage before we live together. We think everything about our beloved is wonderful. That sex will always be world-shattering. That children are something we really want to have. That mortgages and bills and job losses and in-laws happen to other people. That we'll want to spend every minute together forever.

Forever. Hmmmmmmmmm.

Life happens. It has a way of interrupting even the best-laid plans. Job losses do happen. Mortgage and bill payments have a way of showing up every month and need to be paid. Children are born, and the years spent raising them are tough. There are more plusses than minuses, for sure, but the sleepless nites early on with an infant who is colicky and gassy and just plain miserable eventually progress to lying awake at 4 am, praying a rebellious teen comes home and isn't dead on some rain-soaked, dark street. Unexpected illnesses happen. Parents die. Your own mortality begins to stare you in the face and you realize your life has zipped past you at a truly remarkable pace.

But you share history. You progress from a tiny apartment with a few sticks of furniture and eating dinner on TV trays to a home with so much stuff packed away in the basement it'd take a semi trailer to haul it all away. Your two golden-haired toddlers are now adults. Next month your youngest will be 30. 30!!! You become grandparents and, if you're truly blessed, you get to take an active part in their lives. You go from being a couple of carefree newlyweds to being a couple of free spirits in your middle years. You go from hanging on every word spoken by your beloved to sharing contented hours of quiet time together. You have a hard time sleeping if you have the bed to yourself. You have almost a 'psychic' connection, putting on the coffee because you know your beloved will be home soon and he pulls up to the curb just as it finishes brewing. You still call each other "Babe", which was the endearment you started out with...but it's progressed to "Flo" and "Joe". "Mother". "Dear Heart".

And when you come out of the bedroom at 4 am with your silvery hair sticking out in every direction, you find him sitting at the table in the dining room sipping coffee. And he asks you, "How is my bride this morning?"

"...'In sickness and in health, till Death do us part'...those are some heavy words. In the throes of young love and lust and infatuation I don't think most of us, when we say them, really know what we're committing to..."

I'll go along with that. When I look back on other significant decisions I made when I was in my early 20s, there's not too many I'd make again now. It's no wonder so many marriages break up.

Thanks for finding my blog so that I could come visit yours. Your comments about love hit the nail on the head. I only wish my husband were still with me because I imagine we'd pretty much mirror you two after our 35 years and nine months together. Nothing out of the ordinary marked either one of us, just a couple of young music lovers, art lovers, people lovers, who met at a community theater at auditions for a play. It was July 31, he asked me to marry him on September 24, and we married on December 31, intending to be together forever. He died in April, 1983, and some how I've endured the "until death do us part" part. Our sons, our beautiful sons--one will be 33 in September and the other one will be 30 in October. These facts, this passage of time, it all astounds me. Thank goodness those sons moved to Portland so that my Mama and I could end up here.

Hi! Found your site through Lynette's. That was so beautiful, and such an accurate description of love and a life together. Made me a little teary. My husband and I have been together for 24 years. You're so right - sometimes it's not easy. But, knowing that the other is there - even in the bad times, makes this walk through life somehow easier and more rewarding. I love him... he drives me CRAZY sometimes, but I love him - and I absolutely KNOW that he loves me too. Have a great Saturday! Cindy

Great, great, great blog entry, Kris! My "beginning" with my Forever Sweetheart is different than yours...I can't remember the first time we met, but we were probably around 1 and 2 years of age, respectively. My first real memories of him were NOT positive--we were around 9 and 10 by then, and he and my brother were best buds and MONSTERS, in my humble opinon! Amazing that some ten years later, true love blossomed. And now we celebrate 38 years together! I can so identify with this blog, Kris.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything You gave me." ~ Erma Bombeck

"Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.” ― Markus Zusak

“Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?”~Walt Whitman

It doesn't matter who you love or how you love, but that you love ~ Rod McKuen

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose. ~ Dr. Seuss

The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him. ~Henry L. Stimson

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Words to Live By

If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet, how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.